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How Can I Implement A Sales Funnel To My Business?

Traffic. Leads. Sales.

Get traffic on your website. Build leads and contacts. Convert leads into sales.

We’re tempted to hashtag this simple three-string chain of events “business goals”. Like #relationshipgoals (oh, hello there George and Amal Clooney). But for business. Actually, we’re more than tempted: #businessgoals. There. We did it. How to reach those goals though? Not nearly as simple as sticking a hashtag in front of it and calling it a day.

While it isn’t easy, there is a way to convert eyes on your website to money in the bank. It’s called a sales funnel.

If you have a website, and own a business, chances are you already have a sales funnel of some sort. Even if you don’t know it. The trick is to make your sales funnel a conscious effort. It needs to be:

  • something which you know you have;
  • something which is tailored specifically to your business and your market audience; and
  • something which you constantly monitor, tweak and optimize to make it really work for you.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s go back to the part where you probably already have a sales funnel but don’t even know it.

Read on to discover exactly what a sales funnel is, why you should have one, how to create an effective one in six easy steps (with effective being the key word), do’s and don’ts of effective sales funnels (there’s that word effective again), and how to make sure yours continues to be one that funnels money into the bank rather than out of your pocket.

What is a Sales Funnel?

The concept of a sales funnel is a deceptively simple one. Picture a funnel – the kind you use in the kitchen or a science lab. Wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, you use it for guiding liquid or powder into a small opening. Your sales funnel looks just like that – except, of course, it’s metaphorical rather than physical, with the liquid being your customers, and the small opening being your business bank account.

Quite simply, a sales funnel is the path, or series of steps, website visitors tread from first landing on your website to actually purchasing your product or service.

It goes without saying that the more people you can lead down this path to its end, the better for your business. And you certainly don’t want them to take the path less travelled by. You want to give them an easy path, making you the obvious choice for their final purchase.

But this is where things start to get tricky. You need to build your sales funnel so that you’re not the blind leading the blind. Without a solid plan, or knowledge, of what you’re doing, both you and your customers are just going to hit the sides of the funnel, get frustrated, and end up abandoning the route laid out for them and choosing another path entirely… A.k.a. someone else’s business, someone else’s bank account.

Don’t panic though: done correctly, your funnel will allow for smooth sliding, guiding your website visitors along the path to purchase. And we’re here to help you do it correctly.

We can start by breaking the sales funnel down from top to bottom:

1. Top of the Sales Funnel

The top of the sales funnel is the point where potential customers first become aware of you. It’s the first step along the path, the place where visitors land on your website, the place where you create awareness for your business or brand, and any associated products or services. Sticking with the relationship goals theme, this is not the place to go in for a hug, or even a friendly pat on the back. This is not where you go in for the hard sell. Here, you just introduce yourself, show them how nice you are, encourage them to get to know you more.

2. Middle of the Sales Funnel

Once your visitor knows who you are, now is the time to go in for a handshake, perhaps a lingering glance. With awareness high, your sales funnel needs to work to capture their interest, enticing them to move further along the path to purchase. This is where your sales funnel offers genuinely interesting and useful information about your product or service, inspiring in viewers a strong purchasing pull, without ever actually ‘selling’ to them.

At this point, you can turn your visitors into leads, with leads being just one step shy of turning customer. Not only are they learning more information about you, here you can learn a bit more about them. Ask for an email address, enticing them with free courses or trials, coupon codes, discounts for signup. An email address is a key ingredient to a successful sales funnel – down the line you will want to use it for retargeting as well as follow up contact to encourage return visits.

Ultimately, the goal here is to get your visitors to take that final step along the path to the final stage: purchase.

3. Bottom of the Sales Funnel

Here is where the final purchasing decisions are made. Will they or won’t they? Will they click that final ‘Buy Now’ button or won’t they? With fingers hovering over ‘Buy Now’, your sales funnel must work to fuel that final click – be it by retargeting, remarketing or incentives to make the final move.

Finally, an effective sales funnel can inspire return visits by following up with a well-timed and well-targeted emails – be it a special offer, a notification of a new release of a product similar to one they purchased, an offer for tech support, or a simple thank you.

Why Do I need a Sales Funnel for My Business?

Awareness. Interest. Decision. Action. Four little words and four big reasons why you need a sales funnel:

1. Awareness

Do you want people to know about you? Of course you do. If they don’t know you exist, how can they buy anything from you? The goal here is simply awareness: hello, this is us, we’re here, and we sell what you are looking for. (This falls into the top of the funnel.)

2. Interest

Now that they know you exist, do you want people to show further interest in your brand, product or service? Of course you do. If they aren’t interested, they won’t do any further research on you, and won’t include you in their comparison shopping spree. You won’t even be an option. The goal here is to show your visitors what makes you interesting, and worthy, without ever actually selling to them. (This falls into the middle of the funnel.)

3. Decision

Now that your visitors have done their research and are ready to buy, do you want to be included in their decision-making process? Of course you do. Now’s the time to pull out your best offer – an added incentive to buy. An irresistible discount code or bonus product that makes you a shoe-in for the final click. (This falls right before the bottom of the funnel.)

4. Action

Do you want your visitors to turn into customers and make that final click? Do you want them to hit the ‘Buy Now’ button? Of course you do. The goal here is to give them one final reason to go ahead and make the click – retargeting or a reminder email of what’s in their shopping cart can work wonders at this point. (This falls into the bottom of the funnel.)

Once they’ve made that final click, you’re going to want them to start the whole process over again, so make sure that their final action isn’t yours. Slot them right back into the funnel with follow up emails and offers; again with the relationship analogy, a good sales funnel keeps the conversation open and going. Don’t fall prey to complacency – the kiss of death to any relationship, no matter how beautiful the beginning.  

How to Create a Sales Funnel for Your Business

By now you no doubt are keen to dip your toe in the figurative dating pool and create your own sales funnel. For any business, with a website, offering a product or a service, it’s honestly a no-brainer. Follow the six steps below to set yourself up for sales funnel success and achieve #businessgoals.

6 Simple Steps to Building Your First Online Sales Funnel

 

Step 1: Get to know your target audience

To lead your potential customers down the path to purchase, you need to first know, and understand, who they are. You can figure this out by finding answers to questions like:

  • What do they want to buy?
  • What are they looking for?
    Where do they look?
  • Which online channels or platforms do they use?
  • What questions are they asking?
  • What problems do they need solving?
  • What annoys them about online shopping?

Pro tip: Whatever it is you’re selling, you yourself are probably interested in buying it. Answer the above questions yourself to create a baseline of your target audience.

Step 2: Capture their attention to drive traffic to your website

Come a little closer, said the spider to the fly… The only way your sales funnel works is if you actually have people in it. This means getting your brand out there, in front of people, luring them in to discover who you are and what you’re offering.

Start with organic content posting across multiple platforms and channels. Social media and blogging are great tools here. Offer up unique, interesting, real content that is useful to readers and which will intrigue and inspire them to look a little closer, to click onto your website. Sprinkle in the odd CTA, a can’t-miss offer, an incentive to jump on site.

If you have the budget, run a few ads in the places where your target audience is looking – PPC campaigns and LinkedIn ads might be just the ticket. Or spend a bit of money on SEO and landing page optimization.

Do whatever it takes to get people onto your site. They can’t go through the funnel if they never even find the funnel.

Step 3: Create an awesome landing page

First impressions count. And in the land of the Internet, people often do judge a website by its ‘cover’. There are so many millions of pages to land on, after all. If your cover – or landing page – offers a poor experience, they’ll hit that ‘back’ arrow faster than you can say “back”.

Do…

  • Make your landing page pretty to look at.
  • Make it easy to navigate.
  • Make it interesting.
  • Make it useful.
  • Make your message clear.
  • Make it easy for visitors to offer up their email addresses. A good landing page is your very first interaction with potential customers and thus your first port of call to capture those all-important email addresses. Make sure it encourages visitors to sign up to a newsletter, subscribe to the website, download some useful ebook, download a coupon code, or some other mechanism to capture their contact information. This will also lead them onto the next step of the sales funnel.

Don’t…

  • Use this page as your hard sell! At this point in the funnel, a hard sell will lose your potential customers and

Step 4: Keep them interested

You’ve got their attention. You’ve (hopefully) captured their contact information. Now you need to keep ‘em keen. (The old adage of treat ‘em mean does not apply here!)  

This is where you give them all the useful, relevant information you can to answer all their questions, meet all their needs, and keep them keen to move onto the next step of your sales funnel. Some key tools to use here include:

  • Quality blog content (for more on blogging and how it can help your business, click here)
  • Links to your social media channels
  • Video, video, video
  • Relevant email newsletters offering up useful information, sure-fire incentives, or must-click offers.

Step 5: Convert leads into customers

Even if you have their email addresses and their interest, you’re not guaranteed to make the sale. To turn your leads, or visitors, into paying customers, you need to convert them. And quickly. The longer it takes for them to click ‘Buy’, the less likely they will. To ensure this conversion, there are a few tricks you can use, all of which involve making your website, and purchasing process easy, easy, easy.

  • Fewer form fields.
  • Fewer steps to complete purchase.
  • So few, in fact, as to aim for one-click options for sign-up, sign-in, and, ultimately, once all their info is captured post-first-purchase, one-click purchase.

Step 6: Keep in touch

Once your customers have converted, made that purchase, committed to and invested in your relationship, don’t lose interest. Keep in touch. Keep up the communication.

  • Thank them for their purchases.
  • Offer member loyalty points and discount codes.
  • Above all, send them useful, interesting information about your brand, your work, your services and offerings, that isn’t always about selling. ABS – always be selling – is a fail-safe way to make enemies and lose customers.

The Circle of Sales (Funnels)

Now that your sales funnel is in place, you need to make sure you constantly check in on its performance and tweak to improve at every stage of the path. Find where potential customers are falling off and why. Learn from your mistakes. Work at it constantly to make it more user friendly and, ultimately business friendly, for a win-win sales situation: your customers get what they are looking for, your business gets money in the bank. Your funnel – and business – is only as effective as your last sale.

If you still want to learn more about how to implement a sales funnel for your business, call us toll-free at 1-877-563-0459.

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When More Traffic Doesn’t Equal More Sales.

More Traffic Doesn’t Equal More Sales

Are you experiencing more traffic but no sales?

Years ago, when the Internet was in its infancy and businesses were urged to get their very first place in cyberspace, there was a philosophy that ‘if you build it, they will come.’ There was this ‘first on the scene’ mentality that if you could get online first, you could reap all the benefits of the world-wide-web. Suddenly, local businesses could have worldwide audiences. Businesses were dreaming big.

Then came the onset of SEO or Search Engine Optimization. The goal was to utilize the power of search to get more traffic and more sales.

Website traffic used to be a modern-day version of a popularity contest where businesses promoted their page views as a factor in their success. That school of thought is now over because not all traffic is good traffic, especially if you have more traffic but no sales!

What good is having all of that traffic if your visitors are not actually converting – using your services or buying your products? No matter how many people visit your website, or how good your ranking position may be on Google, it’s not helping if your visitors don’t do anything.

Businesses are now demanding so much more from their websites and from their Internet marketing partners because more traffic but no sales won’t sustain a business.

ROI (return-on-investment) has quickly become a very important buzzword. SEO professionals are now elaborating on their reports. It is now necessary to include key metrics that show how ranking results and traffic are also converting and helping the bottom line.

Lead-generation and conversions have since taken over as the new buzzwords. And, rightly so. After all, most websites are built with a goal in mind: to generate more business.

More traffic but no sales could mean you are not attracting the right kind of traffic. It could also mean that you do have the right kind of traffic but your website isn’t helping that traffic to convert.

In either case, it may be time to conduct a conversion and lead audit.

Evaluate Your Website Traffic

What steps do you need to take when you have more traffic but no sales?

First, you need to determine if the traffic you are getting is the right kind of traffic. There are a lot of questions you can ask to help you get to the bottom of what your visitors are doing on your website and what they’re looking for.

  • Are your website visitors looking for what you have to offer?
  • Are they ready to make the next step?
  • Are they purely interested in information?
  • Do they fit in with your target demographic?

You or your Internet marketing professional can dig deep into your website analytics to uncover a lot about the people who are visiting your website. You need to uncover how they got there, what they did once they got there, and even what they might be looking for.

How to Identify Your Target Market?

If you haven’t yet identified your target market, now is the time to do so. By identifying your target audience you are defining your ideal audience for your particular niche. The better you understand your target market, the more you are able to customize your advertising and website content to match.

Some businesses start with a very broad target such as Baby Boomers or Millenials. Others tighten up the demographics slightly such as single professionals ages 30-60. What you need to know is that the more you tighten up your target market and then speak directly to that audience, the higher your conversions will be.

Here’s how you can identify your target market:

  • Compile research and stats on your current best customers including age, location, interests, spending power, spending patterns, language, and stage of life.
  • Analyze your website and social media analytics to determine the types of people who are interacting with your business already. If you have more traffic but no sales and your website isn’t converting, ask yourself if your analytics match your ideal target market.
  • Then, once you’ve uncovered your ideal target market you should create a target market profile. You can even name him/her.
    For example: Meet Jane. She is {gender} aged {age range} who lives in {place or type of place} and enjoys {activity}.

Target Market – Is Your Website Reaching The Right People Based on Their Demographics

Once you’ve identified the type of visitor that is most likely to convert, it’s time to really analyze your website traffic to make sure they are the ones who are visiting your website.

Then, you need to take a look at your website and landing pages with a critical eye for what this target market expects. If your website is soft shades of turquoise and blue but your target market is a business executive, your website probably isn’t attracting their attention.

Location – Are You Reaching The Right People Based on Where They Live?

Use more traffic but no sales to your advantage. By that, we mean analyzing your website data based on city demographics. This can help you determine if you’re falling flat in reaching the right people in the right locations. If you have multiple locations and markets you should determine if there are locations that could use further marketing efforts based on traffic markets.

In some cases, your traffic might be coming from everywhere other than your ideal location. In these cases, you need to set a new strategy to do location-based targeting.

More Traffic But No Sales – Where Are They in the Sales Funnel?

More traffic but no sales could also mean that the traffic is still in the wrong part of your sales funnel. Ideally, your website will be designed to speak to and reach visitors at all the various parts of the sales funnel. But, all too often, many websites fall short at capturing visitors when they’re ready to convert.

If your website has a lot of traffic, it could be because you offer some really valuable information. In fact, providing information, articles, and tips is a great strategy to get people familiar with your brand and your expertise. But, you want to make sure that also offer then the correct calls-to-action – get them to take the next step so you get something from them in return, right?

It’s time to take a critical look at how you move people through the sales funnel on your website and ensure they utilize your services or products when they’re finally ready.

Your Calls to Action – Are Your CTAs Working?

When your visitor is ready to convert, whether it’s buying a product or contacting you, are you making it easy for them to do so? Where are your calls to action (CTA) in relation to your visitors’ movements, habits, and actions? Visitors these days are impatient. They don’t want to have to search for your contact information. They don’t want to have to look for how to make a purchase or get in touch. Your CTAs need to be intuitive. If you can capture them impulsively, that’s even better.

If you are getting a lot of traffic but no sales and you are not seeing the business benefit of all of these people, it’s time to audit your calls to action. What are they? Where are they placed? What do they say? Are they intuitive for the visitor?

Ideally, a call to action that speaks directly to the visitor and asks them to move forward in a specific manner will convert better than a very generic “contact us” button.

Content – Is Your Website Saying The Right Things?

More traffic but no sales will also affect your bounce rate. How’s your bounce rate? Are people hitting your website or landing page and then failing to move further? Are they leaving your website once they’ve arrived? If so, you likely have a problem with your content (text and visuals).

Once you understand your target market, you can identify what it is they will be looking for online. Your content needs to:

  • Match their inquiries
  • Solve their problems
  • Capture their attention
  • And help them on their journey

If it can do this, you’ll stand a much better chance at connecting with and converting your traffic.

Your issue might not be with the people visiting your website, but rather, with the website itself. All too often we’ll get calls from businesses who want to get more website traffic; however, sometimes the best strategy is to really analyze the pages all this traffic will be landing on. You need to build your website and content strategy based on your target demographics and what they will like and be interested in, rather than based on what you like.

If your website is bringing in a lot of visitors but they aren’t converting, it could be an issue with your content, your colour scheme, your page layout, your images, etc.

It’s important that you provide detailed information for SEO; but, it’s also important you don’t give away everything online. Leave the visitor hanging and then follow-up with a strong call to action to get more information. Lead them in. Tease them. Give them good, solid information. But, leave them with a question that only you can answer. And, encourage them, at the right time, at the right place, to reach out to you.

Here’s the thing: many visitors are actually unaware of what they need, where to find it and what to do next. Do this for them. Guide them, lead them and then hook them.

Trust Signals

Items that many pages and websites are missing are what we call trust signals. If you have more traffic but no sales it could be a trust issue. Trust signals include reviews, testimonials, and other elements that prove that your business will do what you’re promising. Portfolio items, case studies, reviews, awards, and certifications are all trust signals that can help your traffic convert.

Mobile vs Desktop

Analyze if your visitors are on a mobile device, a tablet, or a desktop. Does one screen size convert better than the others? Navigating websites on mobile devices must also be intuitive and if it isn’t, it could also lead to more traffic but no sales.

Now, take a look at your website and landing pages on each screen size. If your website is hard to use on a phone and yet 75% of your visitors are browsing from their smartphone, you’ve got yourself a usability problem. There isn’t any amount of traffic that can fix this.

In short, if your website is getting a lot of traffic but is underperforming, there’s a lot you can do to fix these kinds of problems.

Here’s a recap of what we’ve covered.

  1. Identify your ideal target market. Who is your ideal visitor?
  2. Identify your current website visitor.
  3. Are the people visiting your website actually your ideal target market?
    – If yes, it’s time to analyze your website.
    – If no, it’s time to begin to target your ideal visitor with your SEO and marketing efforts.
  4. Identify the steps in your sales funnel. Generally, people are either conducting research, comparison shopping, looking to have a question answered or are ready to make the conversion. Does your website address every stage and then provide a clear call to action or lead-in to the next stage? Are visitors arriving on the right information based on what they’re looking for? For instance, if they’re just at the research page, they shouldn’t be arriving on a page that is designed for purchasing.
  5. Analyze your content. Is it written, created, and designed for your ideal target market?
  6. Analyze your calls to action. Don’t be vague. Don’t use marketing language. Be simple, clear and concise. Tell them, show them, and guide them to what they need to do next.

When it comes to more traffic but no sales, you either have a traffic-type problem or a website usability/target problem…or both.

Target the right people with your traffic-generating tactics. Use your website and content to speak directly to your target audience, answer their questions and provide them with the information they’re looking for. Quickly and easily lead them to the next step and capture their information along the way.

When you look at your lead generation strategy from the perspective of the visitor, rather than from what you like or think the visitor should do, you can begin to look at your strategy and content with all new eyes.

You should then have more traffic and more conversions. Your return-on-investment from your website and marketing efforts will be greater. After all, it isn’t just about getting people to your website. It’s also about getting the right people and then ensuring you’re handling them appropriately based on where they are at in the sales funnel.

And, the number one tip to achieve this? Make it simple for the visitor to understand what they need, what their next step is, and why they need the services/products of your business.

About 1st on the List

1st on the List is one of North America’s leading SEO companies that offers complete SEO services. Please call our SEO experts at 1st on the List toll-free at 1-888-262-6687 to learn more about SEO or if you still have any questions about getting more traffic but no sales.

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How to Get a Sale, Repeat Business or Referrals From Clients and Prospects You Have Met in Person

How to get a sale, repeat business or referrals from clients and prospects you have met in person? Let’s say you meet people at a tradeshow or they visit your location and buy something or maybe they don’t, or maybe you want to stay in touch with people you have given a quote to…

What’s the best way to get people to remember you? How do companies keep their name in peoples’ minds after they have left?

If you want to keep customers active and buying from you again and again or referring their friends to you repeatedly, the best approach is to have a good email follow-up (automated) sequence.  You can set up a weekly (minimum) sequence for a year and keep repeating it in many cases.  In addition to the weekly contact, you can send additional emails for specials and promotions and fun stuff.

It would be good to support email follow-ups with Facebook ads to your email list.  Don’t be boring.  Put some effort into it and be creative with each medium.

In every contact with your “warm” list, be friendly, be entertaining, be informative, do contests and giveaways… ​and also talk about your business from time to time.

Additionally, try to get them to follow you on Twitter and Instagram.  Tumblr is also developing into an influential platform.  Pinterest is especially good to keep in touch with women clients.  LinkedIn is also good or it might be the best one, depending on your target market.

At 1st on the List, we believe that the best idea is to show up where your customers are and be likable.  Every business owner/business has a different personality so there is a lot of flexibility in what you end up doing exactly.

You can hire someone to do this type of networking / socializing.  Costs will vary depending on what level of service you want.  If you just want someone to socialize, you can hire someone for a few hundred dollars a month.  If you want someone to socialize and generate leads, it will cost you roughly double of the socializer.

When you want to generate leads for repeat sales or sales from prospects who have visited you, spend more time making friends and being friendly than selling.  There’s a way to bring up business when you are socializing so people love to do business with you.  No one likes a person who is always just talking about their own business.  ​​

Handing out freebies like t-shirts and coffee mugs can be part of the matrix, but by itself, it won’t be enough to generate business.  Better to keep that money in your pocket.  If you want to generate business, start with email, grow into social media and use the giveaways as one part of an overall, planned campaign.

If you still have questions about getting more sales to your business or you would like more information, please call our Marketing experts here at 1st on the List at 1-888-262-6687.

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WordPress Site? The Importance of Updating Your Themes & Plugins

Why update WordPress plugins is a very common question…more common than you might think.

Keep in mind, however, that WordPress themes and plugins are software programs. Over time, these programs can become outdated, or the software developer may have released newer updated versions with better features or even bug fixes. So, the main answer to “why update WordPress plugins” is to help keep your WordPress website up-to-date and working optimally.

One of the selling features of developing a website in WordPress is there is pretty much a plugin for everything and anything you might want to do on your website.

That’s what makes WordPress web design so powerful and popular. In fact, according to whoishostingthis.com, WordPress powers almost 15% of the top 100 websites in the world. That’s big brands trusting WordPress to get the job done. But it’s more than the big guys using WordPress. In fact, according to w3techs:

  • 32% of all websites in the world are run on WordPress
  • WordPress is the most used CMS system
  • With 59.4% market share, WordPress is far ahead of any other CMS system (by comparison, #2 is Joomla with 6% market share)

Why is WordPress so popular?

Another great answer to “why update WordPress plugins” is that WordPress is open source software. It’s free. And, some of the greatest minds work openly to create seamless and useful website functions, which we know as plugins. This helps web developers and designers code and create websites more efficiently and effectively.

What is a plugin?

Most WordPress websites are compiled of a group of functions that are pre-programmed for functionality and integrate seamlessly into the WordPress platform. WordPress plugins are pre-built software solutions that can save web developers a lot of time and money when programming their own solutions.

There really is a plugin for almost everything, from SEO tools to rotating banners and from image resizing to pop-up messages. If you can dream it, there’s likely someone who has already built a WordPress plugin solution.

Here are a few other reasons why updating WordPress plugins is necessary.

Proliferation – The WordPress Plugin Directory currently lists over 56,365 plugins (and growing) with over 1.3 billion downloads.

Too Many Plugins – Overuse of plugins can slow down a website. Plugins can also clash with each other, which could then cause problems with your website that might be difficult to assess.

Stale or Outdated – Some WordPress plugins are completely useless and others no longer function as they should or are now obsolete.

Nevertheless, if you need something for your website, chances are there’s already a plugin for that.

Web developers are also continually challenged to answer this important question: “When to use and when not to use a plugin?” The key to using plugins effectively is to only select plugins from verified sources and only install them if they solve or serve an essential function that isn’t already a part of your framework.

Keep Up with the Changing WordPress Platform

From security and bug fixes to enhancements and improved speed, every WordPress update is released to help your website function better.

Your website sits static in its hosted environment. Meanwhile, the Internet and programming languages are constantly evolving. As well, hackers are consistently finding new vulnerabilities. WordPress plugin updates are released in an effort to keep up with the improvements and bug fixes.

As of March 12, 2019, WordPress was running version 5.1.1. By the time you read this, this number will most likely have changed. WordPress is constantly releasing new updated versions in an effort to ensure functionality and security.

Ensure Regular Backups of Your Website

Change is another reason “why update WordPress plugins” should be a mantra.

When you make any sort of update or change on a website, anything can happen. Even with the best-laid plans, sometimes updates or plugins are incompatible with other functions, even unrelated functions of the website. This is why it is important to ensure regular website backups.

There are plugins for website backup protocol! Popular solutions include:

  • iThemes Backup Buddy
  • UpdraftPlus
  • Vault Press.

With the ability to run daily or weekly site backups, you’ll be thankful you have a recent backup to revert to should you ever get hacked or run into a major problem.

Use a Security Plugin To Protect Your Website

According to Sucuri, WordPress is the world’s most hacked CMS system and 61% of infected websites are running an out-of-date version of WordPress. Meanwhile, 52% of the vulnerabilities reported are coming from incompatible or outdated plugins, as reported by WPScan. Why update WordPress plugins indeed!

Common and popular WordPress plugins that are often a gateway for hackers include:

  • Gravity Forms
  • Revslider
  • TimThumb

In order to protect your website from potential vulnerabilities and hackers, you need to ensure your website is secure. While ensuring you are up-to-date on WordPress plugin updates is a great start to ensure your security, you can do more to protect your website. Popular security plugins include:

  • iThemes Security Pro
  • WordFense Pro
  • Sucuri

Update Your WordPress Theme

Themes are another reason why update WordPress plugins are important. Most WordPress websites use a theme to ensure consistency in look, feel and function. A theme is akin to a skin. A theme provides more control over the look and presentation of a website, without having to make constant custom updates.

Many WordPress themes have a variety of features, customizations, and functions already embedded within the theme. WordPress themes can be updated to improve security, reduce vulnerability, and add features and functions. If your chosen theme has a new update, it’s important to listen and act accordingly. If you fail to stay up-to-date on plugin updates, it can cause website problems down the line.

Update Your Plugins Regularly

As is the case with the WordPress platform and themes, plugins can also have updated versions. Most plugin creators continue to add new features, improve code, enhance quality and reduce vulnerabilities. These changes are released as updates. It is important to ensure your plugins are up-to-date so your site can benefit from these updates immediately.

Solving Plugin Incompatibility Issues

Plugins…the very thing that makes WordPress so great can also cause major issues! Because there are so many plugins available from third-party developers, it is common to run into compatibility issues.

  • Some plugins are not compatible with updated versions of WordPress
  • Other plugins will have issues working in tandem with other plugins.

How do compatibility issues arise? Well, different plugins might be trying to do the same thing on the website, or they might be trying to change or update a feature or element but in different ways. Plugins may also have been developed based on a past version of WordPress. Finally, a common reason for compatibility issues is when a plugin was created with bad or buggy code.

Generally, somebody else will have already discovered the compatibility issue and will have made a note of it or offered a possible solution. So, before you install or update a plugin, it is wise to search for any known issues.

What does a compatibility error look like? Well, it can be anything from broken functionality to something less obvious. In fact, sometimes you might not even realize the issue because it will manifest in a way you are not expecting or looking for. This is why it is important to test and do a thorough run through of your website whenever you perform a WordPress or plugin update.

Only Keep Plugins That You Are Using

Keeping your website clean – another reason why update WordPress plugins help. You can help prevent future problems and vulnerabilities. Often, plugins are left active or installed on a website even if they are not being used. They are then forgotten and left abandoned and vulnerable to hackers, or they can cause other issues within the website.

Regularly perform a plugin audit and disable any plugins that you are no longer using.

How to Update, Maintain & Secure Your WordPress Website

You can find out more about this topic by reading this Guide to Updating WordPress Plugins courtesy of SitePoint. Now that we’ve outlined why it is important to ensure your WordPress platform, theme and plugins are up-to-date, maintained, and secure, it’s now time to discuss how to do this properly.

When you log in to WordPress you may see a message alerting you to a core WordPress update or plugins that have available updates.

If you are an experienced web developer you shouldn’t have any issues making the updates; however, if you are a website user, you should have your web developer make the updates for you so you can try and avoid any issues that might be caused. GitHub is a community that is great for feedback, so posting here can help save you time and avoid issues.

But, guess what? As you might suspect; there are plugins for this, too. Site Push, Theme Check, Sandbox and Plugin Detective can help you before you run into big problems.

If you run into an incompatibility issue you’ll likely want to take your website to a staging server and deactivate every plugin. Then, one-by-one, reactivate them until you can source the plugin causing the issue.

If you decide to run updates yourself and run into an issue, this can cause further issues down the line. The best practice when it comes to website maintenance is to let the professionals handle it.

The Importance of Regular Website Maintenance Plans

Years ago, when most businesses got their first website there was a mindset of “set and forget.” In other words, you had your website built for you, the content was static and you didn’t really have to think about it again unless you wanted to make a change. It was likely built and coded in a custom environment and likely lacked complexity and functionality. In other words, there was no need for website maintenance, except if there was something you specifically requested.

With the advent of content management systems such as WordPress, updating your own website got a lot simpler; however, vulnerabilities opened up. Functionalities increased and websites got better; however, with one update you can cause serious issues.

It’s important to have a long-term site maintenance plan. While the most obvious risk to your website is a site hack, there are other problems that can arise if you fail to, or wait too long to make updates.

From improved functionality to increased speed, regular site maintenance plans are designed to ensure optimal user experience. A regularly-maintained and updated website helps search engine rankings, helps with speed, improves usability, protects your brand, and can even increase customer retention and conversion.

Unfortunately, your website is at risk. Wordfence reports there are up to 90,000 attacks on WordPress websites every minute. Even non-WordPress sites are just as susceptible to a hack.

Functionalities can Change, Break and Evolve

Think of your website as a car. With regular use, your car needs regular maintenance including gas, oil changes, tire alignments, etc. Think about modern-day cars and the vast speed of new technology that has become available in recent years. The same is true for websites. Today’s websites are complex with a variety of moving parts, much like a car. Even elements that do not seem to be integrated with each other, can be connected in some way.

Just like you take your car to a mechanic, it’s important that your website has a professional team looking out for it.

Maintenance plans generally include things such as ensuring the hosting environment is optimal or updating themes and plugins. Larger, more complex websites often have a custom, hands-on approach to maintenance that involves a lot of testing when things are updated.

Generally speaking, the more complicated your website the more regular maintenance that will be needed.

Here’s the thing. You could wait for your website to break before you realize it needs to be maintained, or you can pre-empt disaster and get a handle on a proper maintenance plan now. Back to our car analogy: regular oil changes end up far less expensive in the long run than replacing your entire engine because you failed to maintain your oil.

About 1st on the List

1st on the List is more than just an SEO company. We can help you understand “why update WordPress plugins” is a question that needs to be addressed, continually. We offer website maintenance plans to ensure your website is running at optimal levels because we know that a well-running, functional website helps with SEO and lead generation.

Trust your website maintenance to the professionals so you can focus on your business without any risky technical interruptions.

Did you know? It’s because of services like our WordPress Maintenance and Security Plans that we are recognized as a top E-Commerce Design & Development Company on DesignRush.

For more information, call us toll-free at 1-888-262-6687.

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How To Create Landing Pages That Convert

When done properly, great landing pages that convert can really add to your ROI.

The object of any landing page is to provide a clear and complete path to a decision, whether that is a download, a purchase, a request for more information, or some other clearly defined call-to-action.

SEO, pay-per-click marketing, and other online forms of generating traffic are designed to direct more visitors to a website. With a good SEO strategy and excellent content based on user-intent, you can grow your targeted traffic. However, getting them to the website is only half the battle. What they do once they arrive is what really counts. Getting traffic to your website is great but if it doesn’t convert, what’s the point?

Whether you call it conversions or lead generation, landing pages that convert are the holy grail of a full SEO or digital marketing strategy.

What is a Landing Page?

By easy definition, a landing page is any page that a visitor lands on from any form of advertising or search engines. So, any page within your website might be the very first page a visitor lands on when they visit your website. This could be your homepage, a sub-page, or even a blog article.

With this in mind, it’s important that you evaluate your entire website to create landing pages that convert. Each page within your site should be a good representation of your brand and should have a clear path for what you want the user to do next.

That being said, many digital marketing companies will encourage you to invest in “landing pages.” These are specific pages designed to match a campaign and user intent.

Some online marketing professionals insist that landing pages that convert must have a form. Others will argue there just needs to be a clear call to action or next step.

Ideally, a landing page is a page with a clearly defined target audience based on a specific topic, usually decided based on a user query. The user is then provided only the information they need to make an informed decision, be it a purchase, a form fill-out, newsletter signup, a content download, or even an offline visit.

Identifying Landing Page Topics

The first step in gaining traffic that converts is to figure out a visitor’s intent and then create content that is a good match. SEO keyword research is a great place to start. You’ll likely narrow down to a variety of keyword queries that will give you a fairly good idea on user intent. From there, you can create landing pages that match the target queries.

  • If you’re a real estate agent in San Diego, you might find you could use landing pages that convert for San Diego ocean view condos.
  • If you run an accounting company, you might find you could use a landing page for 2019 tax deduction tips.

In other words, you are identifying the demand for your product or service and then you’re going to use your landing page to reel them in.

Before you write a sentence of copy, you need to have a clearly defined message for your clearly defined target audience.

Landing Pages that Convert have Clear Calls-to-Action

What do you want your visitor to do? Be clear. Your general website is the backbone of your online presence. It’s where people might go to to learn more about your company and your services. It’s where you can be different things to different people.

Your landing pages? They have one important job to do. They need to capture the attention of the visitor. Since you’ve already identified the target audience and their user intent, you need to clearly articulate the next step.

Common calls to action include Buy Now, Download, Contact Us, Sign Up, Try It, etc. Don’t distract your landing page visitor with a variety of messages. Make it easy for them to take the next step.

Help The Visitor Along

In a perfect world, a person types in a query and clicks on your ad or organic listing and lands on landing pages that convert right away. Well, unfortunately, the world isn’t perfect and this is a rare occurrence.

You have to work a little bit to help the visitor along your path to conversion. This is where content comes in.

Ideally, you will have a combination of three forms of content.

  1. Text
  2. Images
  3. And video

Each piece of content should be able to stand on its own, but also compliment the other forms. In other words, you aren’t going to say the same thing, word-for-word in a video that you have in text on your page. After all, there needs to be a reason for the visitor to watch your video.

Having some social proof can also be an important element in landing page content. This is a testimonial or two depicting how your product or service has helped someone to solve whatever it was they came to your website looking for.

So, in order to help the visitor along so they feel comfortable forging a relationship with you, you need to provide them with the answers to their questions, the information they’re looking for, and a hook they simply cannot resist.

Keep It Simple

It’s important to ensure you do not overcomplicate your landing page. More often than not, landing pages that convert are clean, simple, and easy to understand.

This means you have one clear message. Everything that is on that page must relate to that message and must help lead the visitor further down the path to a conversion. Limit the content that doesn’t serve your main goal: moving the visitor down the conversion funnel.

Don’t complicate the page with a variety of messages and calls to action.

If you can, keep your navigation simple. After all, you don’t really want them leaving the page to get lost within your full website. You don’t need to offer them all the information about your company. Eliminate almost any click that isn’t your call-to-action.

Use your brand guidelines, fonts, logo, etc., so that the visitor starts to establish a relationship with your brand; however, keep it as simple as you can.

Important Elements of Landing Pages that Convert

Landing pages that convert generally have a few important elements in common.

1. A Really Great Headline
The job of your headline is to reinforce the visitor’s query while enticing them to stay on your website. You have a second for the user to decide if your page will help them. Your headline needs to help solve their query, look professional, and be catchy enough that they want to scroll a little bit more, rather than hit the back button. It has to capture their attention, their interest, and compels them to learn more about your offering.

2. A Really Great Subheading

The main headline piqued a visitor’s interest so now it’s up to the sub-heading to go in for the kill. Normally the sub-heading is positioned directly below the headline to act as the two in a one-two punch.

3. Enticing Visuals

Visual storytelling helps to sell. Any images you use on your website need to be clear, beautiful, and help inspire your visitor to action. Do you have a video that can help reinforce your message? Many visitors look to video to help them in their decision making.

4. A Benefit (pleasure) Statement

Articulate the main key benefit the visitor will get for completing whatever it is you are asking them to do. If you can use a feeling of pleasure within the copy, you can best play upon their emotions.

5. A Reinforcement (pain) Statement

Does your product or service solve a pain point? Now is the time to remind them of this pain and reinforce how your product or service will solve their problem.

6. Legitimize Your Business – Part 1 – Contact Details

Landing page visitors will look to ensure you are a real business and they will do this by looking for your contact details. Having your address, phone number and email address on your page’s footer is an easy way to show the world that you are real. You can go even further by having a link to your about page.

7. Legitimize Your Business – Part 2 – Social Proof

By showing satisfied past clients, you are providing social proof that your business, product or service is legitimate. Many web visitors are wise to testimonials, so use legitimate reviews cited from third party websites.

8. The Offer
What are you offering the visitor? What are you offering in exchange for the visitor completing the action? Keep it clear.

9. The Value Proposition

What’s in it for the visitor? Just like the offer, you need to keep the value proposition clear and simple. Outline the benefits. This is where you need to talk directly to your visitors about your visitors’ needs, not about you.  

10. A Guarantee or Way Out

Want to catch a visitor in a moment of spontaneity or weakness? Offer them a way out. A website visitor is more apt to take the plunge when they know there is a safety net to catch them. A guarantee or unsubscribe at any time statement allows them to know they are not locked into their decision.

11. Simple Form

Did you know that the more fields you have in a form the lower your click-through-rate will be? Only ask for the information that you absolutely need at that moment. You can obtain other information at a later time.

12. A Powerful Call To Action
Ok! So you’ve hooked them and reeled them in. Now you need to seal the deal before they get cold feet. This is where your call to action comes in. What is the one thing you most want them to do? Make it big and bold. Make it unmissable. Make sure it stands out.

Let’s Talk About Layout

Many web designers create website pages on very big monitors. They’ve accounted for plenty of ‘white space’ and are able to design very stunning pages. But, did you know that the average screen size is 1024×768? Yes, that’s a typical laptop screen. Plus, more and more Internet users are conducting searches on their mobile phones. So, while a page might look great on the web designer’s screen, how it looks and acts on a laptop and phone is far more important.

Landing pages that convert well are also very responsive. This means the content and images adapt to fit the browser size of the visitor. This allows for the page to look and function great on any device.

How the site responds to the various screen sizes should be planned out. Often, items will simply begin to stack on a mobile device which can account for an awful lot of scrolling. Is the same information necessary to a phone visitor as it might be to a desktop visitor? Is there a visual indication to keep scrolling? These are all important question that needs to be asked. The most important elements of the page should be front and centre regardless of the device!

A/B Testing

It goes without saying that you will test your landing page links and form. What we’re talking about is A/B Testing. This means delivering variations of headlines, copy, images, colours, etc. to different users to determine which combination of elements gets the best click-through rate.

After all, for all the good design rules and how-to’s out there, it can be difficult to predict what will actually resonate with the majority of visitors.

The rule of A/B Testing is to test one element at a time so you can effectively make a determination of the winner. Colour, call-to-action wording, call to action location, etc. are all things that can benefit from A/B testing.

In Conclusion

The best landing pages that convert are the ones that were planned and designed with the user in mind. Once you decide what action you want them to take, you can guide, persuade, and convince them to do it. If you make it clear and simple, most people will do what you ask them to.

1st on the List is one of North America’s leading SEO companies that also offers SEO website design. To speak with one of our SEO experts, please Email or call us at 1-888-262-6687.

 

You might also find Neil Patel’s article interesting entitled, The Definitive Guide to Creating High Converting Landing Pages.

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How Long Should It Take for SEO to Work and Show Results

Inevitably, every client wants to know how long does SEO take to work.

Everyone wants instant gratification. We live in a time where nobody really wants to wait too long for anything. We’ve been conditioned to believe that faster often equates to better. We want instant food, instant miracles, instant success, and instant everything! But that’s not reality.

Let’s take food for instance. You can open up a can of soup, heat it up in the microwave and within seconds you can be eating your lunch. It’s delicious, quick, and provides you the sustenance you need to get through the next part of your day. Sort of. It’s also filled with salt and preservatives, and in many cases, the nutritional value can be lost or minimal.

Now, think of that homemade turkey soup you cooked right after Thanksgiving. You created a broth from the bones that you let simmer for hours in order to extract every ounce of natural flavor. You added in your fresh vegetables and herbs. It might have taken all day (not to mention the day it took to cook the actual Turkey) but the result was the perfect bowl of homemade soup that was chock-full of goodness and taste.

It took time, but it was worth it. The same can be said for Search Engine Optimization.

SEO Takes Time, But It’s Worth It

Almost every single client will ask the all-important question: how long does SEO take to work?

The industry-standard answer is 4-6 months…perhaps. You can find hundreds (or thousands) of articles on the Internet that agree with this consensus. And you can say that to every-single-client, but sometime within the first week or two, every client asks if it’s working yet.

Clients are excited. They’re nervous. They need to account for their spend. You’ll remind them that you ensured they’d start to see some results within 4-6 months, but at some point, they’ll begin to get impatient. It might not happen every time, but it happens enough. How long does SEO take to work will depend on a lot of variables.

Sometimes results can take a day, a year, or even more. It all depends on the goal, the key performance indicators (KPIs), the competition, the industry, and the ever-changing landscape of the Internet.

Let’s Determine What The Results Will Be!

Instead of providing the generic four-to-six months answer to the question “how long does SEO take to work,” we find it can be far more beneficial to outline what our anticipated results will be.

Key Performance Indicators – KPIs

KPIs are objective, tangible metrics that are used to measure the success of a campaign.

In the realm of SEO, there are several KPIs that can constitute successful results.

1. Growth in Organic Sessions – Tracking traffic from organic search is a measurable KPI. Growth can be slow going, as it does take time for pages and websites to make their way up the search engine results, especially in competitive industries. It is the objective that lies at the heart of any SEO campaign since more targeted traffic from the search engines is something that always excites clients.

2. Increases in Keyword Rankings – Back in the day, SEO companies would provide clients with spreadsheets outlining keyword results for targeted keywords. It was a metric the clients loved. But, with the growth of localized and individualized search results, it became more difficult to provide an accurate measure of keyword rankings. A website could be sitting at #1 for one user but #4 for someone else in a different location. Now, SEO companies might provide a more generalized average for keyword rankings.

Keyword ranking isn’t the be all, end all though. Going from number 50 to number 8 might not make a huge difference in traffic; however, going from number 8 to number 4 likely will. This is because most users will click on the first few results, but not wade too much further down the list.

3. Leads & Conversions – What good is all of this extra traffic if they are converting into leads? More and more companies are getting savvy with the results they expect to see, and leads, orders, and sales have become a valuable KPI for SEO campaigns. On average, the best results for a website come from organic traffic results. After all, this traffic is highly targeted for specific searches. If a person is searching for the best place to wash their car, it is likely to assume they are further down the path-to-purchase than a person who gets advertised to by a car-wash display ad or social media post.

4. Session Duration – Generally speaking, once you implement an SEO campaign, you will likely start to see an increase in session duration. This is because the quality of traffic is highly targeted, which means the user would likely be more genuinely interested and engaged in your website and information.

Targeted Traffic vs General Traffic

If you look at just numbers, one might think that having 10,000 visitors a day vs 5,000 visitors a day is a win. But, if the 10,000 visitors who are coming are more general in nature, is it really a win? They’re likely not spending as much time on the website, or they’re browsing without intent to purchase, contact, or convert. They take more effort to convert or bring back. So, if you can get 5,000 visitors who are specifically searching for one of your particular products or services, they’re more targeted. They’re likely more ready to convert or purchase. Those 5,000 visitors are more valuable than the 10,000 generalists.

How Long Does SEO Take to Work Depends on Tactics

Depending on the industry and the competition, an SEO professional will undertake a variety of tactics to achieve results. Think of it like growing a garden. Some plants, fruit, and vegetables take longer to bear fruit or flower than others. In addition, you can’t quite ever predict how long it will take before the tomatoes are ready to be picked.

An SEO plan that is really content-driven can take a lot of time; however, the results might come in spurts. The SEO professional will target a keyword, have a piece of content written and published, and depending on how competitive the keyword is, results may start coming within a week or longer. No one really knows how long it takes for SEO to work.  It could also take six months or more. In the meantime, with each new piece of content, site authority and ultimately results will start to build.

Budget Also Affects How Long SEO Takes to Work

Nobody wants to admit that the more you pay the better results you will get; however, budget equals time and resources.

How long does SEO take to work? Simply put, the more you put into it the more you should get out of it. Three team members spending six hours should see results faster than one team member sending two hours.

At the end of the day, SEO is not a quick-fix for a business that requires results immediately. It’s a long-term process that requires a strategy and if done properly, can provide long term results. SEO is a process where every step builds upon the one before it. Today’s results are likely built upon the effort from six months ago.

So, while you’ll likely find it takes four-to-six months to start seeing results, it isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. There are many types of SEO services that can be brought into play. Instead of offering a timeline for how long does SEO take to work, it can be more beneficial to offer education on the KPIs. That way, you can start celebrating the little wins along the way.

Please call our SEO experts at 1st on the List toll-free at 1-888-262-6687 to learn more about SEO or if you still have any questions.

For additional information on this topic, visit this informative article by Search Engine Journal.

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5 Online Marketing Trends in 2018

Online marketing has opened up marketing avenues for businesses. Every year new technologies appear making it easier for companies to target and market to their potential customers. The Internet has changed the face of how a business communicates, tells its brand story and obtains new business. From the tried and true SEO and Email marketing to AI and PPC, is your business keeping up?

 

Top 5 Online Marketing Trends in 2018

 

  1. AI – Artificial Intelligence & Chatbots – Chatbots aren’t new in the world of digital marketing; however big improvements have been made. In 2018 more and more businesses jumped on board the chatbot bandwagon. Generally, most brands are using AI for customer service.
  2. Stories – Storytelling took on a new form in 2018. Social Media ‘stories’ grew in popularity. Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook and YouTube all have their own version of stories, generally designed for a user to share moments of their day. Because stories generally disappear after a certain amount of time, stories play on our ‘fear of missing out’.  FOMO means that followers, fans and consumers will be eager to consume your content before it goes away.
  3. Video – Video is a fantastic tool in your online marketing tool belt? Why? People love videos. It’s an easy way for people to consume information. This increased engagement in your content can work wonders for your SEO and marketing campaigns.
  4. Voice Search – People still head to search engines such as Google to find products, services and information. Now, with more and more homes getting ‘smart-assist’ devices, along with Bluetooth enabled devices, voice queries are a growing trend. Ensuring your website is found how people are searching was a key trend in 2018 that will continue to grow next year.
  5. Personalization – It might seem a bit creepy, but brands and businesses have the ability to monitor your digital footprint through your cookies. When a brand can leverage this data to provide you with personalized content (whether in an ad, email or website content) you are more likely to convert. It’s like when those shoes you’ve been coveting online suddenly start following you around the Internet. Or, when you spent some time on a website devouring a piece of content and next time you visit they serve you something similar.

 

As we head into 2019, one thing remains clear. Good content that provides visitors with what they’re looking for is key. This helps with search engine positioning, digital marketing and social media. When you can layer your efforts and cover the digital landscape your brand is poised for success.

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Lead Fluctuation

A good SEO strategy encompasses more than simply ranking for the best keywords. After all, a website can be more than simply a tool for information, it can be used to convert traffic into leads.

What is Lead Generation?

When it comes to your website, what do you want to measure? If a business has an e-commerce platform, its ideal leads are orders through their shopping cart. For businesses that do not sell products online, they generally count a lead as a contact, whether that comes in the way of a form fill-out, a newsletter sign-up, an email, a phone call or a business visit.

At 1st On The List, we know that the majority of a website’s good leads come from organic search traffic. The process of ‘SEO’ allows us to find out what people are searching for online that relates to your products or services, lead them to your website, entice them with good content and then convert them to a lead.

Our SEO is backed by a tried-and-true process that includes extensive and regular keyword research, content that helps people with what they’re looking for, and clear calls to action.

How Many Leads Should I Expect to Receive?

Well, the answer to this varies depending on your industry, the volume of searches and your target audience. In fact, it can often take a website visitor three or four visits before they fill in a form, contact you or sign up for your email newsletter. In addition, they often visit a few other websites as well.

In order for a person to ‘give up’ their contact info, they expect something in return. In most cases, a healthy dose of industry advice and content is a good start.

Why Do My Leads Fluctuate?

So, let’s say you’re getting a lead a day for a couple of weeks and then all goes silent again. You might jump to the conclusion that your website is broken or that you’ve fallen off the search results. But more often than note, leads fluctuate because of something entirely different.

Conversions are dependent on customer intentions. If a website has a relatively low traffic volume, they are very susceptible to lead fluctuation based on a website visitor’s intentions.

Time of the day, week or year. Some businesses see a typical cycle of lead generation. For some they will notice most conversions happen at night or in the morning, or at noon while people are on their lunch breaks. Others might notice they get nothing on Wednesdays. And others find certain months, time of the month or even times of the year will generate more conversions than others.

Here’s What You Need To Know

Our team regularly audits your conversions, your website tracking and functions and your rankings in the search results. Drops in conversions are rarely due to website function or ‘SEO’. In fact, almost 100% of the time, it’s due to the visitor and their intention.

Often, when we notice conversions have gone quiet for a period of time, it picks right back up a few days or weeks later. Once again, this is because not all visitors will ‘buy’ on their first or second visit. In fact, if you open up your conversion window to a wider timeframe, you may even notice an increase in visits, rather than the decrease you’ve noticed in the short term.

Getting a predictable flow of new business online can be challenging, especially for some businesses and industries. The best source of new business does come from organic search results, which means an SEO plan is the ideal way to ensure steady, targeted traffic to your website.

About 1st on the List

Located just outside Vancouver, BC, Canada, 1st on the List is a boutique SEO Company that has been offering search engine optimization, pay per click, and SEO web design services since 1997.

To learn more about our services, please call us Toll Free at 1-888-262-6687 or send us an email.

 

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What is the Average Cost Per Lead?

When was the last time you sat down to determine your average cost per lead generation?

Do you ever question whether this is in line with other companies of your size, in your industry, or earning a similar revenue?

A recent study published by HubSpot surveyed over 350 companies in order to compile cost per lead data. Here are the numbers to use as your own cost per lead benchmark for 2017.

Average Cost Per Lead

The average cost per lead $198.

Average Cost Per Lead by Industry

Industry Average Cost Per Lead
IT & Services $370
Healthcare & Medical $286
 Financial Services $272
 Industrial & Manufacturing $235
 Media & Publishing $191
 Consumer Products $182
 Marketing Agencies $173
 Education $66
 Non-Profit $43

 

Average Cost Per Lead By Company Size

Company Size Average Cost Per Lead
 1,001+ Employees $349
 201 – 1,001 Employees $212
 51 – 200 Employees $180
 2 – 50 Employees $147

 

Average Cost Per Lead By Company Revenue

Annual Revenue Average Cost Per Lead
 $500M + $429
 $10 – 500M $179
 $1 – 10M $185
 <$1M $166

 

Key Takeaways

  1. Large enterprise organizations with 1,000+ employees are paying the most per lead.
  2. In a similar trend, companies with large annual revenues (greater than $500M) are paying the most per lead.
  3. For companies with revenues less than $500M per year, the average cost per lead is fairly similar.

For the full study with data including number of leads, sales opportunities, and customers generated, please download for the study here.

If you are wondering how to increase your monthly leads without breaking the bank or are considering alternate marketing methods with lower average cost per leads, contact our SEO Experts by calling 1-888-262-6687.

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SEO in 2017 and Beyond: The Numbers Game

So what did we learn about SEO in 2016 that we can carry over into the New Year and improve our SERP positioning? We learned numbers! Lots of numbers!

I think that the most interesting statistics this year (and even from previous years) center around mobile, voice search on mobile, and voice search through present and future home devices. And they’ll probably all be applicable to a greater extent as the year unfolds.

In this article, we will take what we have learned from the past year and share what we think are the most important SEO predictions for 2017 and beyond.

1. Mobile Search Dominates Desktop

According to Search Engine Watch, we know that 93% of encounters online begin with a search, and from a Search Engine Land article, we learned that 65% of those searches worldwide are done through Google.

Impact has told us that 80% of users on the Internet own a smartphone, and Smart Insights indicates that the same percentage of smartphones (80%) are used to search online.

Marketing Land suggested that 56% of traffic received by the top 10,000 US websites in 24 categories came from mobile. However, if we read that actual webpage prologue by SimilarWeb that produced the report, we find that it reads the “…leading 10,000 most mobile sites in the US in 2015.”

The report itself, however, loses the most mobile reference entirely, so there is some uncertainty as to whether just mobile-friendly sites were included in the report, or mobile and desktop sites were the ones for which the stats were presented.

What does all of this mean for search in 2017? There will be some distinct changes and unique approaches developed to provide mobile-search-worthy content in 2017. SEO will not only have to address mobile’s consumption of quick, complete responses to specific questions (whether by voice or text), and produce more content pages optimized for mobile; it will also have to reflect the growing needs of the voice-only market created by home devices.

2. Voice Search Over Text Search

In a May of 2016 article, Search Engine Land cited Google indicating that 20% of mobile queries were voice searches. Now that Google has prioritized Mobile over Desktop, our takeaway should be that we can expect that number of voice queries from mobile to continue to increase significantly.

The anticipated high adoption rates of home devices such as Google Home, Amazon Echo, and Windows’ upcoming device, will all contribute to the growth of voice search.

As discussed in Voice Activated SEO Strategy for Google Home Device, Google is expected to ship nearly 3 million voice-activated speaker devices in 2017. According to Geek Wire, Amazon has already sold 5 million Echo units. That is at least 8 million reasons to focus more intently on voice searches.

The argument for voice-activated searches will direct the purposeful route of website content toward more specifically-tailored responses to voice searches from 2 very different devices. Those responses will need to be capable of serving their two new online masters (mobile and home assistant) while maintaining desktop traffic. Do any other SEO writers feel like a sideshow juggler already?

Even though both user groups could be searching for similar content, determining user intention based on separate schemes for each style of device will become extremely important, depending on the way voice search tactics by users evolve over time for each group.

SEO companies will need to develop ways to uniquely satisfy the needs of each group of device users without risking duplicate content issues that could be detrimental to their overall SERP strategies (mobile, home, and desktop) as a whole. Target strategies for keywords will no doubt appear somewhat disjointed initially.

It wouldn’t surprise me if as many as 3 different plans evolved for the 3 disparate search methods:

  • Mobile Voice
  • Home Assistant Voice
  • Desktop

3. Apps (plus or minus) Mobile-Friendly Websites?

Smart Insights has quoted Yahoo! Flurry stats, indicating that apps are used predominantly on mobile devices, with 90% of time on a mobile device being spent on an app, as opposed to using a browser such as Chrome (only 4%).

For some companies, I would argue that an app offers some great potential. But, for companies with a consistently changing landscape of information, articles, blogs, and other forms of data not conducive to being presented in app form, their websites will remain as go-to places for individuals with an interest in their products, services, or culture.

Such sites will still require ongoing SEO attention, but how that attention might translate into SEO planning will undoubtedly take a step sideways as more prominent mobile and voice usage begins to nudge desktop to one side until, dare we even think it, we’ve evolved into a totally mobile and voice driven world?

4. Time to Get Hyped About HTTPS

According to Search Engine Journal, as of February 1, 2017, Google has warned that Chrome will mark sites as unsecure if they have forms that collect information such as personal information, credit card information, or password information, and the site does not utilize HTTPS.

Even if only one page collects information insecurely, the entire site will be marked as unsecure, and Chrome users will be unable to access it without clicking through against Chrome’s warnings. Without HTTPS, most websites are open to man-in-the-middle attacks, through which sensitive information can easily be collected. Considering that 55% of desktop and mobile traffic is searched through Chrome, this is a significant wake-up call for website owners.

In February of 2014, I did some research on my own regarding the security of 86 major corporate oil company websites through which I was attempting to submit job applications at the time. Only 13% of these websites were attempting to collect my personal information securely through their own domain. 17% were attempting to collect my information through unsecured pages on the company domain. And probably the most shocking stat was that 23% of these companies were attempting to collect my personal data through unsecured third party domains.

While Google’s move on HTTPS is going to create some pain points for companies ill-prepared for the transition, I applaud the move. It’s time that major companies and corporations started taking more responsibility for safely handling our personal data.

If your company hasn’t done so already, start taking measures NOW to secure your domain before February 1. For more information on the importance of HTTPS, read my other blog article What Does it Take to Rank #1 on Google?

5. Mobile-Friendly Sites and Soft Selling

We’ve all visited those sites. You know the ones. You arrive on your mobile device and have to start zooming in and scrolling from side to side just to read the content. The links are so small, and so close together, that you inevitably click on the wrong link, and close your browser in frustration when the page is only half loaded.

Impact has written that Google indicated 61% of visitors won’t return to your site if they had trouble gaining access to it on mobile, claiming that 40% will visit the site of a competitor instead. CMS Report states that 57% of users won’t recommend your business if your mobile site is poorly designed.

And, a whopping 87% of purchasers, according to Search Engine Watch, indicate that online content has an influence over their decisions to purchase, with 43% disliking a hard sell or conspicuous advertising.

What Does It All Mean?

So what does all of this mean for 2017? Mobile, Home Assistants, HTTPS, and more mobile-friendly websites are probably going to be some of the most important aspects of SEO to pursue this year.

How user intent is defined, particularly where voice search is concerned will likely be one of the most important, ongoing discussions in 2017, making it worthy of its own developmental approaches and evolving strategies.

For an even scarier reminder of how things change so quickly online, visit Live Internet Stats and become mesmerized by their stunning visuals.

If you want to know more about any SEO strategies for 2017, contact 1st on the List today at 1-888-262-6687. Or drop us an email.

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